The Shoe on the Roof Page 5

  Soccer moms didn’t take his question seriously the way younger women did—“How do you want it?” They guffawed instead, saw his game for what it was. But they always answered, and they always chose one or the other.

  Soccer moms alluded to their husbands but never disparaged them, and even better, they always fed Thomas afterward—usually a sandwich, sometimes a Yoplait, too—and dropped him off at his campus, pulling him in for one final, desperately wet, open-mouth kiss among the minivan ruins of crumpled juice boxes and discarded Subway wrappers. One final desperate kiss before returning to a tepid world of tennis lessons and Facebook updates. They would text him later, flirting with varying degrees of skill, and a few even arranged repeat performances, but none made heavy demands on his time and none ever offered to leave their husbands for him. He was a diversion and he knew it. (He liked to think he provided a service, much like the Roto-Rooter Man or a furnace cleaning company.) It was a good run, his time among the soccer moms, and it might have continued indefinitely, wrapped in warm comforters and cups of postcoital cocoa and minivan make-out sessions, if it hadn’t been for a single slip of the tongue. Not on Thomas’s part.

  One mom, more frazzled than most, had dragged him into her bedroom, apologizing for the mess even as she was tugging at his clothes. She’d answered his inevitable question by gasping, “I want it deep and slow. Make me feel.”

  Had she misspoken?

  Had she inadvertently left off the final pronoun, the “it” or the “you”? Or, worse, had the missing word been “again”? It was hard to say, but either way, Thomas never went back to the Travel Section, and he never had to look up into the steady gaze of soccer moms again.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WAS IT LOVE AT first sight? Perhaps. The phenomenon of sudden infatuation, or “love at first sight,” as it’s known, is the result of definable chemical reactions in the brain. It occurs in the amygdala, an almond-sized cluster of cells buried deep in the temporal lobe, and the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped structure that curls around the brain’s interior. The almond and the seahorse help sort out incoming sensations, assigning emotional importance to each, deciding what matters and what doesn’t. They are triggered, in turn, by the visual cortex of the brain’s occipital lobe. When these three areas fire in sync, a fourth region of the brain, one that specializes in facial recognition, will sometimes misfire. The result? A person you’ve just met seems instantly familiar, instantly loveable. It’s that strange sensation of meeting someone again for the first time, of having known them forever, as though you’d been waiting for them your whole life but hadn’t known it. Perhaps this is what happened when Thomas met Amy for the first time, a cascade of chemical reactions. Romantic, yes?

  The other symptoms of “love at first sight”—the shiver in the chest, the increased heartbeat, the sense of dizziness, the sudden draining of the temporal lobes, home to our higher language functions (hence the stammering, tongue-tied nature of those stricken)—are simply outward manifestations of what the seahorse in our brain has already set in motion. Alas, not many love sonnets have been written to the hippocampus or the amygdala. More’s the pity. Biology does all the work, poets take the credit. In the end, there’s nothing mystical about the experience. Except, of course, for the experience itself. There’s the rub: science still doesn’t know how the brain creates mind, how the mind creates self, how the self creates ideas, or how chemistry alone can conjure up something as intangible as a feeling. Does explaining love at first sight also explain it away, or does it only heighten the mystery? These are questions best left for another time.

  Amy arrived like an electrical impulse. It had been a bad day; that may have been part of it. Thomas’s limbic system was probably searching for some kind of reward, some sort of positive stimulus, anything.

  Only moments earlier, he and Bernie had been reigning triumphant, having successfully cornered God in the brain’s left temporal lobe. (If you imagine the brain as a pair of boxing gloves with the thumbs turned to the outside, the temporal lobes form the thumbs, situated above the temples, for which they are named.)

  The experiment began with an offhand remark by Professor Cerletti. “We don’t need to grasp for supernatural explanations to religious impulses,” he’d intoned from his lectern. “The conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus, for example. The bright light, the temporary blindness, the Voice of God. Clearly the result of a physiological disorder, most likely epilepsy. Patients who experience seizures in the left temporal lobe often describe feelings of profound meaning, the presence of an intangible entity. God is a seizure in the temporal lobe. Saint Paul was an epileptic. Joan of Arc was schizophrenic. And what are religious rituals, with their endless repetitions and obsessive attention to details, if not socially sanctioned OCD? There are no psychological problems, only medical ones. Mental illness is a symptom, it’s not a diagnosis. Mental illness is simply the outward manifestation of a neurobiological issue.”

  This got Thomas thinking: If Saint Paul encountered God not on the Road to Damascus, but in his left temporal lobe, why couldn’t you re-create this experience in a laboratory?

  Thus the God helmet was born.

  Together with Bernie, Thomas had rigged up a contraption that would pulse low-level electromagnetic currents through a test subject’s temporal lobes. They threaded a second magnetic coil over the top of the helmet to stimulate the parietal lobe as well, the area that helps distinguish our sense of self from our surroundings, the “orientation association” area, as it is known. It anchors us in time and place. Interfering with that region can create a sense of floating, of disengagement, of merging with a larger reality. By stimulating these two lobes—the temporal and the parietal—the goal was to recreate an encounter with an otherworldly presence. In a word: God.

  Bernie and Thomas commandeered a corner in one of the basement labs for their project, moving—or rather, rearranging—the junk-pile clutter of previous scholarly studies. When he’d first enrolled at the Hawthorne Institute of Brain Sciences, Thomas had expected the laboratories to be sleek, polished affairs, sterile and clean with white-coated scientists striding past to great purpose. Instead, one swam through a series of antechambers, down hallways worthy of a Minotaur—made all the more narrow by an eclectic array of refrigerators squeezing in from either side. Not high-tech cooling containers but dented Frigidaires of dubious provenance in various sizes and shapes, forming a ragtag honour guard, all of them humming different tones, rescued from second-hand stores from the looks of it, with hand-scrawled messages taped on the doors: “Specimens only!” and “Keep this closed!!”

  The labs folded in on themselves, the equipment and cabinets forming snug corridors and cul-de-sacs. Endless beakers and other assorted glassware lined the shelves. There were osmometers to measure salt in the solutions—too much salt and the cells shrink; not enough and they swell—and pH meters to gauge acidity. Brooding fume hoods squatted above loosely coiled ventilators that sucked up mouse dander and chemical contrails. Water distillers drip-drop-dripping. Glass pullers to cut razor-sharp, filament-thin syringes. Eye washes and protective goggles. Tissue box–style containers of disposable gloves. A murky fishbowl, with a fish presumably inside (someone’s neglected pet, no doubt). A waxy-leafed plant, probably plastic. (It looked far too healthy to exist in the depths of the catacombs, as the basement labs were referred to by staff and faculty alike.)

  “A lovely ambience in this corner of the catacombs,” said Bernie as he set up the tripod and video camera. “I like how the smell of ammonia complements the mildew.” A small fridge marked LUNCHES ONLY!! contained several ongoing experiments in the effects of bread mould on baloney sandwiches.

  Compressed-air tanks were wedged in every which way, with rubber tubings running between the lab’s cumbersome confocal microscopes. These microscopes floated on cushions of air, and so precise and minute were the images they collected that the slightest tremor—a door closing on the other side of a wall, footsteps in the hall—could ruin the readings.

  Signs, posted: “Passcards are to be worn at all times!” (duly ignored), “If I’m talking, you should be taking notes!” (likewise), and “WARNING: Premises Patrolled by Trained Attack Rat.” Every available patch of wall space in between was layered with photo collages of colleagues on ski trips and holidays, on Cancun beaches and in Vegas lobbies, hamming it up for the cameras with frilly umbrella drinks and hoisted beer mugs, urgent reminders of Life Outside the Laboratory. (These photos had been compiled over several decades, a forensic study of questionable fashion choices and regrettable haircuts, stretching back to sideburns and flare pants: the gap-toothed smiles of Polaroids and faded Kodachrome snapshots. Somewhere in the layers was a younger Cerletti, a younger Rosanoff.)

  It was here, in the contained chaos of a university lab, that Bernie and Thomas set up shop. With office hours over, they had the run of the place. Their subjects were drawn from the usual ranks: undergrads who needed the money and were thus ideally pliant. The pay was paltry, but pizza doesn’t pay for itself! (A great wealth of our scientific knowledge is based on broke undergrads who are short on cash and, thus, ideally pliant.) The bulletin notice that Bernie and Thomas had posted on campus asked potential participants: “Would you like to have an encounter with God? Here’s your chance!”

  Sessions typically lasted twenty minutes in a dimly lit room with soft music playing. Sure enough, the parade of undergrads that strapped on the helmet reported having spiritual experiences, a “separation of body and soul.” “It’s like, there’s someone here . . . who’s not here.” “A presence.” “A spirit guide.” “My dead grandmother. I could feel her near me.” “It was calming.” “Mystical.” “Comforting.” “Scary.” “It felt like I was lifting o
ut of my body!”

  Here was the biological source of religion. God was merely the brain playing tricks on itself.

  “We did it!” said Bernie. “We solved the riddle!”

  When the last of their test subjects had departed, Thomas plucked a pair of cold beers from a fridge, the same fridge used to store urine samples and plasma. A scattering of magnetic poetry formed the unintentional message “where biology is bold are curious” on the refrigerator door, and Bernie and Thomas congratulated themselves on the success of their experiment in what promised to be a paradigm-shifting study. “This will move the field!” said Thomas. Bernie (being a lapsed Catholic) made a sign of the cross (jokingly, of course) and shouted, “Forgive us, Father, for we have sinned!” And then, with a sly grin, “Can you imagine the look on the priests’ faces when they find out?” Bernie could already see his name lit up in Nobel Prize announcements. “ ‘Evidence of God as a Neurochemical Phenomenon Originating in the Brain’s Left Temporal and Parietal Lobes,’ by Doctors (in fieri) Bernard Flanagan and Thomas—” He looked at Thomas, unsure. “What name would you . . . ?”

  “Alexander,” he said. “Let’s stick with that.” Thomas tipped back his beer, took a long draw. “How is it an Irishman like you ended up with a name like Bernie anyway?” he asked.

  “After the saint. Or maybe the dog. Dad was vague on the details.”

  “To the end of the saints!” said Thomas, and they clinked their bottles like they were crossing swords—only to have Cerletti show up and ruin everything.

  The professor cast his stick-thin figure over the proceedings like an insect Ichabod Crane, although, with his imperious manner and perpetually dour features, he reminded Thomas of one of the lesser Caesars. Not an Augustus or even a Caligula, but a Diocletian or a Galerius. And that ridiculous streak of white hair running from his widow’s peak. That has to be an affectation. No one goes grey like that.

  “Gentlemen,” he said.

  “Professor,” they replied, sitting up straighter reflexively.

  “I caught wind of what was going on down here in the catacombs.” The professor gestured toward the contraption that was sitting on the table, wires braided into imbedded electrodes. “It looks like a football helmet.”

  “It, um, is,” said Thomas.

  “And these tests you’re running, double-blind?”

  “We’re following proper scientific protocols,” said Bernie (evading the question).

  “And yet, you clearly advertised the opportunity—how was it you put it?—to meet God. Calling it a ‘God helmet’ would suggest you are trying to influence the outcome, no?”

  “We never called it a God helmet,” Thomas said.

  “It’s written on the side.”

  Oh, right. Damn. Bernie had indeed emblazoned the helmet with cool flames and the words B & T’S AWESOME GOD HELMET.

  “That was for fun,” Bernie explained. “The test subjects probably didn’t notice.”

  “I see.”

  Thomas could feel his face begin to burn.

  Cerletti nodded thoughtfully. They recognized that nod; it was the Nod of Doom. “So,” said the professor. “Not double-blind, not randomized, not controlled. And I’m guessing the results are anecdotal rather than statistical. Congratulations, gentlemen. You have discovered suggestibility, something that has been known for six hundred years.”

  “The science behind this is still sound,” Thomas said, “even if—”

  “Oh, it’s science, all right. It’s just not good science. Gentlemen, do it properly or don’t do it at all. This”—he waved a hand at the video camera on its tripod, the notebook, the microphone, the helmet itself (which now seemed less magnificent, more ridiculous)—“is a stunt.” And with that, Cerletti flung his toga over his shoulder and departed. Fucking silver streak in your fucking hair.

  “Asshole,” said Bernie (after Professor Cerletti had left).

  The beer tasted flat now.

  Even worse, Cerletti had been right. They had indeed discovered suggestibility. (When they attempted to reproduce their results later on in a double-blind study, wherein neither the people administering the procedure nor those taking part knew what was being tested, and with all the proper controls in place—which is to say, randomized test subjects who received no electrical stimulation to their temporal lobes as well as those who did—the only effect was faint nausea and the occasional headache. God had once again eluded their net, had once again escaped.)

  The two of them were packing up their equipment when Amy arrived, out of breath, cheeks as pink as bubble gum. Thomas was feeling deflated and embarrassed: perhaps that’s what triggered the cascade of chemicals we call infatuation. His dopamine-depleted brain was yearning for some sort of jolt, and when Amy entered the room it was as though a switch had been thrown. A new neural pathway was carved into the soft tissues of Thomas’s inner cerebrum.

  She was clutching one of their notices, torn from a hallway bulletin board. “Am I too late?” she asked. “You’re the ones looking for God, right? In the brain?”

  Of course in the brain. Where else? That’s what Thomas wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. Heart rate: elevated. Chest muscles: contracting. Sudden dampness in the armpits. Vocabulary draining away. “That’s, ah— That’s right. What you said.”

  Bernie looked up from the extension cord he was winding into a box. “Sorry,” he said. “We’re all done.”

  Thomas shot him a look. “I think we have time for one more.”

  “But Cerletti told us to . . . Oh. I see.”

  “Bernie,” said Thomas. “Could you pass me one of the forms?”

  “The forms?”

  “On the desk,” Thomas said, through clenched teeth.

  “Oh, right, those forms.” A twitch appeared on Bernie’s lips, a hint of a smile, there and then gone. A hell of a tell, that one, and one of the reasons Bernie was so bad at poker and so good at small talk.

  It’s hard to say what it was specifically about Amy that set the dominoes toppling over in Thomas’s mind that day. She wasn’t looking particularly attractive. Most of her hair, pulled back, had escaped the scrunchy and was falling forward. Her face was mottled and flushed from running. Perhaps that was it: the fact that she was flushed and out of breath. Perhaps the mirror neurons in Thomas’s brain triggered a similar reaction: heightened respiration, a dizzy feeling.

  They were lost in a laboratory labyrinth, a decidedly non-erotic milieu, almost the definition of non-erotic (look up erotic in a dictionary and it reads: “antonym, see: science, lab, laboratory, research, research laboratory, et al.”), and yet, Thomas felt that familiar rush of desire. The romance of unlikely places.

  “Here you go.” Bernie slid a clipboard across the desk to Thomas, facedown. When Thomas turned it over, there was a blank piece of paper on the other side.

  “Now then,” Thomas said, taking out a pen and pretending to read from a list. “We have a standard set of questions we need to go through. Age, hobbies . . . telephone number. That sort of thing. Let’s start with your name.”

  “Amy Lamiell.”

  “Oh, French?”

  “I guess, at some point.”

  “And can I get your phone number? Perfect. And your email? Thanks. You’re a student? Terrific. What are you studying? Visual arts. That’s wonderful. I’ve always admired the early Impressionists, myself. And are you currently in a relationship? No? Great. And what type of music do you enjoy?”

  She was confused. “What does any of this have to do with—”

  Bernie interjected, speaking in a highly professional manner. “Ma’am, we need to create a personality profile in order to get a sense of your emotional state prior to the test. It’s standard practice.”

  “Standard,” said Thomas. “And how about food? What type of restaurants do you like? Thai, you say?”